Property Executives Get Life in Shanghai Building Collapse Case

A Shanghai court sentenced two real estate executives to life in prison Wednesday for their role in the freakish building collapse that saw a 13-story building topple over on its side last June, killing one worker who was trapped inside.

Bloomberg News

The collapsed building, which has since been demolished

Zhang Zhiqin, ex-chairman of Shanghai Meidu Property Development Co.–the developer responsible for the ill-fated building, part of the Lotus Riverside development–was found guilty of embezzlement, misuse of corporate funds and negligently causing a major accident, while Que Jingde, a former Meidu board member, was convicted of embezzlement, according to Xinhua (in Chinese here, a report in English here). The two men, described as the two largest Meidu shareholders, had been appointed to take charge of the company by the district government in 1995.

The prosecution had said that Zhang and Que embezzled more than 40 million yuan ($5.86 million) of the company’s funds between September 2000 and April 2001, and that Zhang had also misused 440 million yuan of the company’s funds to make investments on his own account, according to Xinhua.

It’s not exactly clear how the graft and embezzlement charges related to the building collapse. According to the prosecutors, back in November 2008 Zhang had ordered an unqualified contractor to excavate an underground garage below the building that later toppled. The creation of a large gaping hole under the building, combined with a pile-up of excavated soil nearby, weakened the foundations and resulted in the collapse.

Pictures of the collapsed building have made their way around the world in news stories and forwarded emails.

The court also ordered confiscation of the two men’s personal assets, worth a total of 7 million yuan.

In February, another Shanghai court convicted six other men on lesser charges relating to the construction disaster, sentencing them to prison terms ranging from three to five years.

– Sky Canaves

Update: A previous version of this article misstated the sentencing of the executives in the second paragraph.

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